South Africa's elections 2014 - what next?

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Picture: Gisele Wulfsohn, Alexandra, 27th April 1994

Basically the ANC has won the election, albeit with a slightly reduced overall percentage vote.  It is still unassailable as the majority party and will remain so until there is a fundamental realignment and reorganization of the opposition parties.  While the DA states that it is working for such a realignment, the option has been on the table since 2009 and the DA has failed spectacularly to achieve this so far – the very recent failed merger with Agang being the obvious illustration.

At a time when the ANC has potentially been vulnerable (Marikana, Nkandla, EFF etc) the opposition has totally failed to provide any kind of alternative vision for the country that can capture the imagination of the population has a whole.  Ultimately this is a failure of leadership – the country has been failed by leaders of all parties.

The achievement of the (Economic Freedom Fighters) EFF in getting 6%+ of the national vote is also a reflection of leadership failures in the ANC and the DA.  Julius Malema is a dangerous populist.  While some EFF leaders have spouted left-wing rhetoric to appeal to the masses the party is by no means a socialist one.  Their ‘economic policies’ are designed to win broad support, with big increases in social grants etc and no articulation of how they will be funded or how the economy can be stimulated to grow so as to meet the needs of a growing population.  And Malema’s flirtations with reintroducing the death penalty and destroying the e-Toll gantries betray his populist nature.  It will be interesting to see, now that he has some kind of mandate, if he is the first to take the pneumatic drill to the toll roads…

More importantly, we must be aware of the dangers of populism, opportunism and nationalism – ultimately political concepts that do no favours for poor, marginalized people anywhere in the world.

The final results show yet again (see my earlier post after the previous national elections in 2009) that a coherent unified opposition could potentially challenge for around 30% of available votes (leaving aside the millions who are either not registered or do not vote):

DA (22.23%) + IFP (2.4%) + NFP (1.57%) + UDM (1.0%) + VF Plus (0.9%) + COPE (0.67%) + Agang (0.28%) = 29+%

I am assuming that this picture would not include the EFF, ACDP or any of the former liberation parties (PAC or Azapo).

This would require a calculated strategy to unify a range of smaller parties (and egos!) under a single banner, and the DA-Agang debacle shows that this may not be easy, but would make coherent political sense.  The work to do this should start now.  If it can be done, there is a possibility of creating an opposition that from a base of around 30% support could potentially challenge the ANC in a real sense in the next national elections.

Of course this would require some radical shifts in thinking within the DA, which would have to really shake off its image as a white middle-class party, adopt some radical new policies and promote real transformation within its leadership.  It would need particularly to develop economic and social policies (and an associated rhetoric) that have broad appeal to ‘the ordinary South African’ (if this is still possible with the DA’s underlying neo-liberal agenda).

This kind of transformation, coupled with the populist critique from the EFF (now in Parliament), could also force some new thinking within the ANC about what kind of leadership it needs if it is to remain relevant in South Africa in the next 5-10 years.